{ Fernando Horta } → Formula Duude

Williams Grand Prix Engineering started their FormulaDuude story on a high, scoring every point available. The team wishes to say a big "thank you" to all factory members who worked 24/7 to make the car in time for the race and, even more, the fastest of the field.

Shaka (Team Driver, 1st-1st): I can't believe I won got 31 points! The team gave me a rock solid fast car and I had real chance of winning the race when qualifying started and I noticed I was faster than my rivals. I lost the lead on Feature race start as my gear ratio were optimised for best laptime overall and that sacrificed a lot of torque at very low rpms. I managed to get ahead of an erratic Pippo and then build a comfortable lead, setting the fastest lap on lap 2 and controlling the pace until the end, even lapping newcomer. Sprint race was more challenging, way more. I made a mistake at the start trying to get a better one and in the end I was down the order, but could close the gap to tib by the end of lap 1. We had a very nice battle until T3 of lap 2, when I got ahead of him only to lose everything going off the track. Further mistakes put me nearly 10 seconds behind tib with 4 laps to go, I kept pushing as hard as I could hoping for a miracle that ultimately happened on the very last corner of the race, when tib understeered onto the gravel trap when I was around 1 second behind. It was a shame for him to lose the race that way, I feel sorry for him but to finish first, first you have to finish. All in all a great weekend and I hope we carry on the momentum on the next race at Albert Park!

Frank Williams (Team Owner): Shaka delivered what we expected from a 2 times Mario World Champion, grabbing all points available at this race. Our car was clearly faster than the others but we suffered from gearbox issues at least 5 times during the race, hopefully Shaka was skilled enough to keep the car on the track despite those problems. Our team is looking forward to next race in 6 days at Melbourne.